Questions for Marc

With so many people wanting to get involved in physical fitness activities, I was hoping we would have more exercise programs on local television–and not just mere exercise segments inserted in morning shows.

Maybe we can also have fitness gurus on TV who can answer questions pertaining to diet and exercise because these are creating a lot of confusion (especially with all these fad diets coming in from the US) among physical fitness enthusiasts.

Fortunately, we have in this newspaper Marc Nelson who runs a Friday column called Question Marc. I’ve made it a habit to read him because I used to get a lot of exercise tips from his pieces on physical fitness.

I’ve noticed lately, however, that Mr. Nelson has been saddled with letters from readers who are seeking answers to their emotional problems–which shouldn’t be the case because they should be writing instead to Ms. Tingting Cojuangco and her daughters China and Mai-mai. (Or why not Dr. Nina Jao who runs an advice column in this paper’s Allure Sunday section?)

Marc and I actually do not know each other personally (although I remember shaking hands with him one time during the opening of a restaurant in Eastwood City) because by the time he got to ABS-CBN to host Keep on Dancing in 1998, I was already in Boston starving, er, studying. (Okay, I was starving while studying.)

Now, I’ve long wanted to ask him questions about diet and exercise, except that the line to his Friday column seems to be long. The easiest way I guess is to field the questions in my column and he can probably give his answers in one of his Friday pieces. So here’s my letter to Marc and I can only hope he reads this:

Dear Marc,

Like most everyone else, I came out of the last holiday season overweight. But the good news is I already lost 12 lbs. in a span of one month and a half. Now, I hope you don’t write me back to ask me how I did it. What I did was actually no secret. It was still the tried and tested diet and exercise.

Believe me, Marc, losing those 12 lbs. was the easy part. Maintaining my ideal current weight is the problem. The readers may probably ask why so? You see, when I was trying to lose weight, I allowed myself to be a slave to diet and exercise–knowing that this was only going to be temporary. But now that I’ve reached my ideal weight, I know that this has to be a lifetime commitment for me and I have to continue with my sensible eating habits (translate that to boring meals) and regular exercise.

But before I totally embrace this commitment, I would like to check first with you if what I’m doing is correct.

For instance, whenever I am in my halfway house–in a condominium building, actually – my regular exercise is to go down to the parking area in basement 4 and climb the stairs all the way up to my unit on the 36th floor and (using the elevator) down again to basement 4 and up again via the stairs all the way back to the 36th floor. I do this four times–for a total of 156 floors, all of which I negotiate in 50 minutes or so (sometimes, I do two steps at a time). My question is, isn’t this bad for my knees? Somebody told me that it would affect the lining on my kneecaps or something like that. Doesn’t the stair-master (installed in most gyms) operate basically in that same manner?

Here are the other questions I would like to ask you pertaining to diet and exercise:

When jogging, how can you avoid having what we call in the vernacular as patay na kuko? I’ve tried jogging on concrete (in the subdivision streets) and on rubberized pavement (in ULTRA) wearing comfortable enough running shoes (with thick gym socks), but my toenails sometimes still end up having hematoma, which can be painful especially in the beginning. A former gym instructor also told me that constant jogging would also "ruin" my feet in time. I don’t know what he meant by that, but as far as I am concerned, for as long as I can still walk, I am willing to have a pair of feet shaped like ginger in the name of fitness.

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According to Jay Manalo in one of his interviews with Ricky Lo, soft fruits contain a lot of sugar and should be avoided when trying to lose weight. But what are these soft fruits? Citrus is soft, but isn’t that supposed to contain a lot of Vitamin C?

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I also read somewhere (I think it’s in Time magazine) that all those fruit juices (in tetra-pack and in cans) are nothing but sugar. What‘s your opinion regarding this? I’m thinking of dropping the habit of drinking pineapple juice since it makes my stomach turn anyway and stick to Coke Light, which perks me up. What about San Mig Light? Does it really have a lot less calories than Pale Pilsen? Whatever the answer is, let’s just drink to that and worry about the calories later.

Cheers!